5 Demo Impressions for Games Out Now

Boyhood’s End, Boyce the Voice, Broken Lens, Galaxy Burger, Grapple Dogs – Cosmic Canines

Some more demo impressions back during Steam Next Fest! Like before, these are games that are releasing soon (or may have already been released by the time this gets published. I hope you guys enjoy my thoughts on the various demos I play and have the urge to write about. Now, if only I can figure out different ways to title these demo impression articles.

If any games still have demos up at the time of publishing, they’ll have a (*).

Boyce the Voice

Out now

I had no idea what to expect with Boyce the Voice as the only thing I saw was the trailer playing when you hover over the game in the Next Fest featured page. I was pleasantly surprised when I played this demo. You play as voice and he is actually just a mailman who was delivering mail. That is, until he attempted to deliver mail for a talent agency. It turns out that the talent agency was trying to find a generic, nobody voice and Boyce fit the bill exactly. Which, honestly, he does do a good job. What was interesting was that instead of the rhythm game being over music it’s over a script that Boyce has to say as he’s now a voice actor for radio. So he’s saying the lines he needs to say in a “rhythmic” way. Pretty interesting and I liked the short demo that only covers the tutorial script.

Broken Lens

Out Now

This is just a spot the difference game, but with some nice art, sound effects, and music to make it cozy. Some differences are easy to spot, while some are harder to spot. There also is a hint system that will circle the area with a difference, but I’m not sure how it’s recharged. There’s also hidden pages you can find to add to your journal and are used to give us lore about the world. Each level takes you to a whole different place and you don’t need to find every difference in a level to unlock the next level(s).

Spot the difference games aren’t exactly my cup of tea, but if it is for you I’d check this one out.

Galaxy Burger

Out now

A cooking game? Yes please! In Galaxy Burger you’re basically running a burger shop within the Milky Way galaxy. It turns out that every planet has become habitable to various different species and they all have an appetite for burgers (or sides). The demo was made to fully showcase the game, so it’s going to be different in the full game, but each planet has different ingredients, setup, and difficulty. You start at Mercury with the other planets requiring you to buy a pass and pay rent for having your store open for the day. There’s also a shift bonus and you’ll be able to be tipped. Anyway, you’ll know how many customers you’ll have for the day and they’ll come in ready for you to take their order. You just have to make what they want. Vegan burgers are easy. For those that what burgers, you just have to put a patty on the griddle, make sure the griddle is on, and wait until it’s fully cooked (which you can tell when the timer ends and it changes color, but be quick as it can burn). Then put it on buns, add any sauce or toppings they want, and put it on the conveyor belt. Some customers do order more than one thing and the conveyor belt does help group them together and put it in the bag. Once you make everything and set it to be bagged, it’s time to be rated on your cooking and how long you made them wait.

When you go to other planets, however, it gets more complicated. You get more toppings, more condiments, another spot for customers to order (oh boy the mix ups that can happen), and even another cooking station like a deep fryer. Though, your stations do upgrade, like the griddle having different heat settings so you can cook burgers or roast things faster or more deep fryers. And yep, you’ll be asked to toast buns, cheese, and onions. Thankfully, you can pre-cook things without ruining your rating to make things a little bit less hectic. After some milestones, you’ll also unlock recipes. You can see these in the recipe book, but this basically just cuts down on what needs to be on the ticket so it’s not like a mile long and testing your memory.

This one is pretty decent. The developer has said in the forums that the full game will be different than how it is in the demo, but either way it definitely seems like a game where you don’t want to upgrade too fast. It’s pretty easy to be overwhelmed in this game, especially so since there’s no tutorial. I do hope there’s a tutorial as the game uses both “well-done” and “medium” and I’m pretty sure it’s the same thing cook timing wise, but I wasn’t sure until I served a customer asking for a “medium done burger” a patty I let cook for half the time. Anyway, I do like the different species that can visit your shop, knowing how many customers you’ll get, and all the different toppings and patties (I’m counting eggs here) that are available here. And I have to talk my friend into playing this with me as this does have multiplayer.

Grapple Dogs: Cosmic Canines

Out Now

To be honest, I played this demo to see whether or not I’d like the first game (since I missed the demo for that one). I was interested in Cosmic Canines when I saw the announcement trailer, but I would want to play the first game first. Although, I was still unsure due to some of the cons people mentioned about the first game. So, this demo was playing double duty for me.

This demo includes four levels, two with Pablo and two with Luna, and we get some story details in the first (as it is the tutorial level). In the first level, Pablo the Grapple Dog seems to have been separated from his girlfriend and not knowing where he is. The only ones here are the blue wizards, or Beyonders, who Pablo remembers from the first game and seem to be leading him somewhere. As you continue through the level and learn how to play, you soon witness the big bad of this game, Vyr, invading and Pablo quickly leaves as per the Beyonders’ requests. With Luna, we learn that she is also Grapple Dog (alternate universe version of Pablo?) with the dimension she’s in being invaded as well. Luna also seems to be allied with the Beyonders and trained under them (the trailer confirms this as well as her being edgy). Gameplay wise, both these dogs play differently. They both have the grapple mechanic, but Pablo has more of a focus on the grapple with circling into a ball and slamming down being his way to deal damage; while Luna focuses on dealing damage with her gun and dashing. Both have limitations and I like that. In addition, each level will have four collectibles and it seems like if you find all of them you’ll be able to pet Pable/Luna. The levels for both do seem to be made well and does seem like the game will have a steady difficulty curve.

I liked Grapple Dogs: Cosmic Canines’ demo. The four levels were fun and I actually liked the two different playstyles between Pablo and Luna. I also liked the grapple mechanic, which also means that I’ll pick up Grapple Dog soon. Hopefully, I don’t end up procrastinating before Cosmic Canines comes out in August.

Boyhood’s End

Out now in Early Access

I’m not really sure why I had this game on my list of demos I should play during Steam Next Fest. Probably a mix of the game’s title and the visuals. I did think about skipping this one, but I was pretty dedicated to trying out all the demos I had on my list. Anyway, Boyhood’s End follows Giovanni and we learn that he lives in a world (or universe) where you have a human score and that score is everything. The higher the score, the better you’re treated and the more opportunities you get and the lower the score, the worse you’re treated and you can’t do anything without permission. The world is also ruled by a mechanical overlord known as R. Karellen due to him being objective as he doesn’t have pesky human emotions or biases.

Giovanni, in particular, has the lowest human score in the universe and even then, his personal life is going terribly. We learn that while his score was low anyway, as he used to live in a district where all the low scorers were, it became the lowest due to his father being suspected in taking out the whole low score district. Everyone in the low score district died other than Giovanni himself and his mother. However, his mother was critically injured and is in a coma in the hospital. His friend was able to talk R. Karellen to letting him go to the school he’s enrolled in now, but his life there is miserable. Not only does he need permission for everything (he can’t even get food without proving with a body scan that he’s hungry) and can’t deviate from his path, but he’s being bullied relentlessly. One of his bullies is even one of his old childhood friends that had a whole attitude change and has one of the highest scores in the school. With a combination of the bullies and the arbitrary things that can cause a score deduction, Giovanni can’t seem to get out of the score hole. At least he has his laptop and his hacking skills. Once you have a robot’s R Code, Giovanni is able to access the robot to do various things depending on what kind it is. Like looking through surveillance screenshots or causing a hologram to change what it looks like. During gameplay, you’ll also be able to hack in the overworld so you can unlock doors or solve puzzles.

Giovanni’s hacking skills also allows him to get money to pay for his mother’s hospital bills. He masquerades as the mysterious “Handler” who will take on requests for money. However, as the day goes on, Giovanni gets an alert that life for him is getting even worse as Karellan takes away insurance from low scorers. Giovanni freaks out, not knowing how he’ll be able to pay it now, but he gets a mysterious request to hack R. Karellan himself for an extreme amount of money. He, well, takes it as he’s desperate for money, but that turned out to be the worst thing that could have happened. The robots start to go after him as Karellan is now doing a “symbosis” program; which, if you get caught, means death. Giovanni runs away the best he could and when all hope is lost, the popular Campanella appears to save him. The demo does end here, but it does look like this leads to the opening scene where Giovanni and Campanella are arguing on a train.

I surprisingly enjoyed Boyhood’s End. It was interesting learning about this game’s universe and seeing just how terrible life is for low scorers. The gameplay, while simple, was also good and really drives home how terrible this universe is to Giovanni. I also really liked the opening, the art is great, you can feel the tension despite not having voice acting, and I really liked how the characters were animated. I was not expecting the characters to be animated, but the action was well done. The art also looks great. I’m definitely going to pick this one up as I really want to know what happens now. Though, I’ll probably pick it up when it fully releases rather than during early access.